Misplaced Anger…

When dealing with a person who has Asperger’s Syndrome, misplaced anger can come from any number of sources. The anger can come from sensory overload, finding a social setting confusing, a break in a repetitive schedule or pattern, frustration trying to understand others and even from being preached at by others as to how to interact in public, etc. While these could be the sources of the anger, because the aspie has a hard time processing non-verbal cues, and even with high-functioning aspies often has a hard time communicating their exact feelings to others, there can often be a misplacement of said anger to times and places that people who don’t have Asperger’s would consider misplaced or even socially inappropriate.

One of the most common places where I regularly experienced misplaced anger growing up was on the golf course. My dad and I loved to play golf together. However, I was never very good at golf. I enjoyed golf, but not was very good at it. The frustration that I experienced on the golf course though, almost every time that I golfed with my dad triggered a lot of misplaced anger to be released. The anger was not over the golf itself. I generally enjoyed myself while golfing. The anger was due to the stress of not getting along with my mom. The misplaced anger on the golf course would usually start with an usually bad shot, which would then follow with me swearing and possibly even throwing my clubs, even though I knew that throwing my clubs would seriously upset my dad. The anger outbursts on the golf course were not meltdowns. They were anger outbursts. When I would melt down it would often take me hours to recover from a meltdown. Once I was done letting the anger out I could easily return to having fun within a relatively short period of time. My dad has always been a very calm and collected person. He would gently let me know that was I was doing was not appropriate for the golf course without yelling at me, and would encourage me to continue playing and having fun. Misplaced anger while golfing ONLY happened when golfing with dad, never when golfing alone or with people other than dad.

Another major event where there was serious misplaced anger was at the funeral of my friend Jim, who I had written an earlier blog post about. Jim and I went to mass and then had breakfast every day from Sept 1993-May 1996, with the only exceptions of when I would be at home from college. Every morning at 6:45 I would call him and he would anser “Are you coming?” I would reply “Yes” and hang up the phone. By the time I was down stairs and outside of my dorm room he would pull up and give me a ride to mass. Afterwards we would have breakfast together. Needless to say when Jim died, my morning routine came to an abrupt end. I was clearly upset over the loss of my great friend, but at the same time I was also upset over the end of something that I greatly enjoyed. This was in spite of the fact that I knew it would be ending within a month due to my graduating from college just weeks after the death of Jim. Needless to say Jim’s funeral was very difficult for me. The priest who prayed it was not a traditionalist Catholic, even though the funeral was at the monastery that he and I had attended mass daily at for the past 2 1/2 years. The priest took liberties with the text of the mass, which any other time would irritate me, but that day it made me irate. Due to my love and respect for my friend, I was able to keep the anger in until the funeral and reception were over, but I was angry over the funeral for months afterwards. As noted in the long blog post about Jim, the anger from the funeral would become a 38 page paper on integration of spirituality into daily life which was the final for Introduction to Spirituality Class in seminary later that fall. Yes, I was still dealing with the anger from the funeral which was in May a full six months later when I was writing the paper in November 1996.

I wish I had a bit of advice to offer anyone who has an aspie in their life and deals with misplaced anger, but I do not. I wish I could say that I have never experienced it before, but the unfortunate truth is I have experienced more of it in my life than I really care to admit.